Friday, October 30, 2009

Maybe you’ve been depressed—crying at the drop of a hat, not enjoying things that used to make you happy. Or you feel overwhelming anxiety, the kind that makes you think your heart might beat right out of chest. Or perhaps it’s a little scarier than that, and you’ve started seeing things that aren’t there.

The bad news: something’s up. The good news: you’re not going insane.

Insanity is actually just a legal term to describe abnormal mental patterns and behaviors (as in not-guilty by reasons of insanity). Your symptoms could indicate any number of diagnoses. Most of them decrease with treatment, including psychiatric attention and medication.

If you’re concerned by your feelings or behavior, you may be struggling with one of the following common psychiatric illnesses:

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Despite a 30-year lifespan that gives ample time for cells to grow cancerous, a small rodent species called a naked mole rat has never been found with tumors of any kind—and now biologists at the University of Rochester think they know why.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Remember Ida, the fossil discovery announced last May with its own book and TV documentary? A publicity blitz called it "the link" that would reveal the earliest evolutionary roots of monkeys, apes and humans.

In fact, Ida is as far removed from the monkey-ape-human ancestry as a primate could be, says Erik Seiffert of Stony Brook University in New York.

The new analysis says Darwinius does not belong in the same primate category as monkeys, apes and humans. Instead, the analysis concluded, it falls into the other major grouping, which includes lemurs.

It's time to update the entries in your browser's links toolbar. But with recent estimates putting the size of the internet at well more than 100 million distinct websites, it's getting harder and harder to get a handle on all the great stuff that's out there. That's why we've compiled this list. And unlike some lists you may have seen, which try to name the very "best" websites, but end up just telling you a lot of stuff you already know, we've chosen instead to highlight 50 of our favorite sites that fly under most people's radar. Think of it as the Maximum PC blog roll (remember those?). These sites represent great alternatives to popular web destinations like YouTube and Hulu, and include useful references, powerful web apps, and the unknown blogs you must absolutely bookmark.

You might have heard of some of these sites, but we'll bet you haven't heard of all them. Read on and find out. You won't be disappointed.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

The Quick 10 is a regular feature at Mental Floss. I loved the Smurfs since I was a child so I am including this on the site today. Deal.

Here at the Quick 10, we’re taking a break from our regularly-scheduled Halloween posts to bring you this public service announcement: it was 51 years ago this week that The Smurfs were first introduced to our pop culture vernacular. I thought it seemed like a pretty worthy reason to break the spooky string of posts, and anyway, I bet at least one of you _flossers spent a Halloween or two slathering yourself in blue paint to portray one of the sapphire shorties (you’ll let us know if you did, right?).

Monday, October 19, 2009

So you think your mother-in-law is torturous? Or your boss with the lame sense of humor? Get a load of the following nine insane torture techniques used in different parts of the world to kill, dismember, or otherwise cause inordinate amounts of pain. We promise: you’ll never use the word torturous the same way again.

The "Helmet Project" web site is an attempt by its creator, a completely amateur graphic artist and a long-time fan of football at all levels, to create and maintain an on-line "catalog" or "atlas" of uniform-sized, accurate, and up-to-date images representing the football helmets worn by college football teams and teams from a few professional leagues in the United States and Canada. To the best of my knowledge, nothing of this sort has previously been attempted for as many different teams and helmets as are covered at this site. Initially, I started "drawing" these things just for my own amusement (I will frequently use the word "draw" here for lack of a more precise term to refer to the use of graphics software), but I eventually decided that other people might find this subject interesting, also, and might be able to fill in some of the missing information. So, I "opened" this web site in July, 1999.

Friday, October 16, 2009

I used to work at a Goodyear and Firestone. I loved the smell of the rubber in the showroom. I really think this work is outstanding. Tires are hard to dispose of, so any form of tire recycling intrigues me.

In January 2006 in New York, the patient of a well-known psychiatrist draws the face of a man that has been repeatedly appearing in her dreams. In more than one occasion that man has given her advice on her private life. The woman swears she has never met the man in her life.

That portrait lies forgotten on the psychiatrist's desk for a few days until one day another patient recognizes that face and says that the man has often visited him in his dreams. He also claims he has never seen that man in his waking life.

The psychiatrist decides to send the portrait to some of his colleagues that have patients with recurrent dreams. Within a few months, four patients recognize the man as a frequent presence in their own dreams. All the patients refer to him as THIS MAN.

From January 2006 until today, at least 2000 people have claimed they have seen this man in their dreams, in many cities all over the world: Los Angeles, Berlin, Sao Paulo, Tehran, Beijing, Rome, Barcelona, Stockholm, Paris, New Dehli, Moskow etc.

At the moment there is no ascertained relation or common trait among the people that have dreamed of seeing this man. Moreover, no living man has ever been recognized as resembling the man of the portrait by the people who have seen this man in their dreams.

A Paris laboratory discovered that a fingerprint from the tip of an index or middle-finger, found on the top left of the picture, was "highly comparable" to one found on da Vinci's work St Jerome, which he painted early in his career when he did not have assistants, according to the Antiques Trade Gazette.

The infrared analysis also showed "significant" stylistic parallels with those in da Vinci's Portrait of a Woman in Profile in Windsor Castle.

The ink and chalk drawing was also made by a left-handed artist – as da Vinci was – while carbon dating was consistent with the Milanese fashion the girl was dressed in, from the late 15th century.

If verified as a genuine da Vinci it could be worth tens of millions of pounds.

Archaeologists in Rome have made an interesting discovery. They think they may have unearthed the site of a Roman rotating dining room – renowned for being one of Emperor Nero’s more fantastic and extravagant architectural feats!

Archaeologists in Rome have made an interesting discovery. They think they may have unearthed the site of a Roman rotating dining room – renowned for being one of Emperor Nero’s more fantastic and extravagant architectural feats!

Reference to this rotating dining room was made by Roman historian Suetonius in “Lives of the Caesars”. This dining room (the coenatio rotunda) was discovered amongst the ruins of the Golden Palace (Domus Aurea) on Palatine Hill in Rome.

Professor Ellen van Wolde, a respected Old Testament scholar and author, claims the first sentence of Genesis "in the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth" is not a true translation of the Hebrew.

She claims she has carried out fresh textual analysis that suggests the writers of the great book never intended to suggest that God created the world -- and in fact the Earth was already there when he created humans and animals.

Dave Shealy is founder of the world’s only research center dedicated to the skunk-ape (the 7-foot tall, 450-pound apes that supposedly stroll through Florida reeking of rotten eggs). He’s spent much of his life trudging through the Everglades looking for signs of the creatures and has even gone so far as to call for the state of Florida to pass a law outlawing the hunting of them.

This guy is nuts, right? No matter your answer, he’s not the first person to try this with the skunk apes, and certainly not the first to push for government protection of a cryptid (an animal whose existence can’t be proved with scientific certainty). In Florida, the US, and even elsewhere in the world, individuals, politicians, and organizations have fought for legal protection for cryptids.

Friday, October 9, 2009

For 1200 years, the Maya dominated Central America. At their peak around 900 A.D., Maya cities teemed with more than 2,000 people per square mile -- comparable to modern Los Angeles County. Even in rural areas the Maya numbered 200 to 400 people per square mile. But suddenly, all was quiet. And the profound silence testified to one of the greatest demographic disasters in human prehistory -- the demise of the once vibrant Maya society.

What happened? Some NASA-funded researchers think they have a pretty good idea.

Treehouses are an interesting branch of design. They are usually modest in size, certainly tread lightly on the ground, and can bring us closer to nature. The German firm Baumraum has been building treehouses and platforms around the world, calling them:

Special little dwellings installed up among the trees fire our imagination and rouse our curiosity, bringing back childhood memories, and with them the desire to climb up and enter a magic world amongst the foliage.

The ones they have built are interesting, but the ones on the boards, the visions that haven't been built (or perhaps are unbuildable) are fascinating, and sometimes scary.